Working Group

A Working Group (WG) is defined as a group of individuals or experts in a particular field who came together to achieve specific objectives. Different organizations like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the Internet Engineering Task Force created different working groups to accomplish specific purposes. Based on RFC 2418, Working Groups are created to address specific problem or to produce one or more specific deliverables such as guidelines, standards or specifications. Working groups operate for a short period of time, generally upon completion of its goal. Its term may also be terminated for any other reason.

Organizations like IETF, ICANN etc. determine if there is a need or if it is appropriate to create a working group in order to resolve certain issues. Any organization provides guidelines and defines the criteria in establishing a working group. Every working group has a charter, which serves as an agreement between the working group and the organization. It contains the specific assignments of the working group that needs to be fulfilled.

ICANN Working Groups

ICANN's supporting organizations have different working groups tasked to address or resolve different issues. The Generic Names Supporting Organization created guidelines for working groups to be able to deliver productive and effective results.

Working Group A

Historically, the first ICANN working group was created on June 12 1999 by the DNSO Names Council known as the Working Group A. Its objective was to examine the Chapter 3 of the WIPO recommendations regarding the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy.Amadeu Abril i Abril of Nominalia and Jonathan Cohen of Federation International des Conseils en Propriete Industrielle were appointed co-chairs of Working Group A. Its initial members include:

• Mark Partridge
• Susan Anthony
• Michael Heltzer
• Ted Shapiro
• Peter Dengate Thrush
• Randy Bush
• Kathy Kleiman
• David Maher
• Ken Stubbs
• Jon Englund
• Luis H. de Larramendi
• Hirofumi Hotta
• Dr. Willie Black

Subsequent Working Groups were also created by the Names Council on June 25, 1999 to perform specific tasks such as:

• WG B - Famous Trade-marks
• WG C - New gTLDs
• WG D - DNSO Business Plan and internal procedures
• WG E - Global Awareness and Outreach